WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

The Times and The Sunday Times are ready to charge for access to their online editions.

A bold move.

Typical of Rupert Murdoch.

Like the typical trashing that he gets in the last few years regarding his fight against the “free for all”

Well, very soon we will know.

And… what if Rupert Murdoch is right?

I will suspend my judgement.

He loves newspapers and is taking big risks.

So I will not be surprise if, again, he right.

UPDATE:

Watch here Rupert Murdoch on the iPad, Apple and Steve Jobs.

The country is grounded.

The Sunday Times reports that:

Five million travelers, including as many as 1m Britons, are stranded or unable to fly.

Some have been told they may not get home until next month.

Schools are preparing for missing teachers and pupils tomorrow.

Cambridge University has cancelled exams because dozens of students and examiners are stranded abroad.

Hannah Montana was due to appear at the London premiere of her new film The Last Song, but Disney said she was still in America and unable to fly.

Geologists have no idea when it will stop.

An eruption in Iceland in 1973 lasted five months and 10 days.

And many British Sunday newspapers don’t get it!

The Observer opens its Sunday edition with a Thursday night story…

The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Express, and The Independent on Sunday ignore the news in their front pages.

Yes, nothing.

Nada!

Nada!

Nothing!

What a shame!

The Sunday Telegraph does better.

And sends reporters to watch the real ash cloud.

While The Sunday Times, the leading quality Sunday paper, opens with the ashes as the main story.

Any explanations?

Yes.

Two main reasons:

1. Sunday newspapers are becoming more and more features newspapers, so they don’t do reporting. Their editions go to the presses very early on Saturday and the real deadline in the newsrooms is Friday night… so relax, and wait until next Monday or Tuesday to say something as the regular sources and Mandarins will feed you. On Weekends they don’t work, like you.

2. When you have a newsroom organized around beats, of course you don’t have an “ashes” beat. And you don’t have enough flexibility to cover major news like this one. So your front page reflects the politicians agenda. Not the people’s one.

The mantra now in many European countries is to say that Sunday newspapers need to be re-invented.

Well, not really.

What they need is to do journalism 101.

Cover the news, write stories behind the news.

And serve the readers.

And not just cover the sources.

And please them.

Period.

The Sunday Times reports today about some “smart” Labour cabinet ministers using his government contacts to change policies in favour of businesses.

WOW!

Raising hell just two months before the next UK’s general election campaign.

Watch in the video how Stephen Byers, former trade and transport secretary, secretly recorded by an undercover repoter of the paper, offers himself “like a sort of cab for hire” for up £5,000 a day.

Amazing!

And, the por soul, also suggested bringing Tony Blair to meet clients…

The Sunday Times undercover reporter posed as a company executive looking to hire MPs for lobbying work.

The interviews were part of a joint investigation by Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme in which 13 Labour MPs and seven Conservatives were approached.

Well, another example of the classic “Publish and be Damned!”

It works.

It sells newspapers.

And makes (corrupted) politicians go crazy.

Journalism 101.

Tis is why the Sunday Times is a best-selling newspaper.

Alfredo Trivino has redesigned The Sunday Times and he has done a super job.

The leading British Sunday paper is now full color, more easy to read and better organized.

As Harold Evans writes;:

“This week’s Sunday Times looks more attractive than last week’s with the sparkle of the best of the web pages, but that is not the central point of the redesign.

A superficial change of look is not what design is all about.

Newspaper design is not about cosmetics; it is about enhancing communication.”

And today’s changes enhance the communication with readers.

Brilliant, Alfredo!

The paper is launching a £3 million ($6 million) marketing campaign featuring Peter O’Toole with the new slogan “The Sunday Times. For all you are.”

The old slogan “The Sunday Times is the Sunday Papers,” will still be featured, though in modified form on the second page, where it will appear as “The Sunday Times is my Sunday Papers.”